Before I do that, I want to be self-critical by raising a point that - prompted by a friend's email - struck me forcibly on re-reading my piece.

I realised that it would be possible, given that I specifically yoked the class divide to academic differences, to view it pejoratively as a division between an educated middle class and an ill-educated working class.

I did not mean that, of course, but the emailer did ask whether I was in danger of advocating a "dumbing down" regime. She wrote:

"Should we not applaud the fact that (a) Britain is more middle class, (b) more people go to university and (c) journalism is attracting better educated entrants? How can you champion working class causes when you have no idea what they are?"

Her assumption, the reverse of the assumption of most commenters to the posting, is that there is nothing intrinsically special about the working class. Social class is now irrelevant. Education alone matters.

This made me bristle. If we accept that the middle class account for about 51% of the population (and many believe that to be an inflated figure) it means that about half the population remain working class.

To exclude that vast portion of the population from the opportunity to "report from within", so to speak, is surely anti-democratic.

If there are no working class journalists it would mean that there was no media representation from within a class that, more than any other, requires a voice.

Shuttleboy rightly asks: "How can middle class kids from the Shires possibly understand, and therefore reflect, the lives of those in inner city estates and then produce newspapers that the masses there will want to buy in large numbers? How can you champion working class causes when you have no idea what they are?"

That's why we should beware the consequences of denying the working class access to journalism by staffing newspapers with a middle class élite. (One emailer, a BBC staffer, believes the corporation's various newsrooms have been overwhelmingly middle class for years, as do wonderblog and SuperClive).

I readily accept the arguments of DanDon and jnrich that I should not overstate the case. There is still "a healthy intake" of working class students into tertiary education courses for journalism, though - as I wrote - not on City University's post-grad course.

One other clear division also emerged in the discussion, that between London and the rest of the country. The metropolitan media - be it papers, magazines, TV or radio - is much more middle class than elsewhere, in what we Londoners dare to call "the provinces."

Indeed, there is a distinct difference in the class composition of the staffs on London-based national media outlets and those on regional and local newspapers (including those in the home counties), which tend to be more working class.

I certainly believe that there is a benefit in having well educated journalists regardless of class, so I do not accept the arguments of those who disdain university journalism courses altogether (such as wonderblog, pcmcgarry and SuperClive).

However, I want to qualify that. Whenever school-leavers ask me about which undergraduate degree they should take in order to prepare them for journalism I suggest they choose the subject they like best, be it English, modern languages, physics or Icelandic history. (For good sense on this point, read the comments of AngelaPhillips).

This may get me into trouble (not least with audreyhorne), but I still lack faith in three-year undergraduate courses in journalism unless they contain a very large measure of essential on-the-job training (as Whealie rightly advocates).

For example, DanDon and jnrich point to the virtues of Sheffield University's practical training. And DanDon is right to stress that learning about ethics and the history of journalism has great value.

We also need to take on board the claim by Whealie that "journalism degrees attract education funding that is disproportionate to the demand from employers" and his further claim that "it is over-supply by universities that has dampened salaries."

Note the salary figures quoted by MCornish and weep. Students who have run up debts during their time at university are hardly attracted to the low wages offered by the publishers of local papers (as pcmcgarry also argues).

Similarly, the story told by milesmonroe about working for free is a reminder of the way in which publishers can exploit journalists because there is a ready supply of young wannabes. He also referred to anti-working class prejudice within the industry.

The middle classes favour the middle classes. And I suspect many working class editors also do the same.

Though Brickwalker wants us to see the problem as money-based rather than class-based, the two are inextricably linked. But I bet many heads were nodding at what he wrote:

"I could (just about) afford the training, but I couldn't afford to take the job [in London]. I ended up subbing on my home-town newspaper, a job from which I'm shortly to be made redundant.

"I can no more afford to move to London to work now than I could two years ago, and the jobs market isn't exactly rosy anyway! So, in my case, it really wasn't worth the risk.

"Those running big media firms really do need to wise up. If they are going to insist, on the one hand, that journalism shouldn't be the preserve of the rich, but on the other insist on degree-educated entrants, they are going to have to start paying salaries that don't require people to be subsidised for the first five years of their working careers."

He concluded with a stab at City University for charging £8,000 for a year's post-grad MA course. Well, that's the market rate - and we turn away more applicants than we accept.

But my old friend Waltroon won't let me get away with that. He argues that I should not be teaching "the moneyed middle classes" and that I am "complicit in maintaining the privilege" of which I complain.

He asks (as does iainwithers, one of my students) what I plan to do about it.

Waltroon suggests I go to the big banks and brokerage houses and demand more money for scholarships. He writes: "Squeeze them until their charitable pips squeak."

And iainwithers wonders if the industry could provide more bursaries for aspiring journalists.

Well, I think we could try to obtain more bursaries, though some publishers have deserted us, including one (the News of the World, since you ask) that did so because it disliked the content of my lectures. Nevertheless, pushing for bursaries from employers seem the best route.

I'm uncertain if banks and stock brokers would stump up to train journalists. I have a feeling that they regard us as the enemy. (But, Waltroon, I'm going to pursue that).

We could, of course, attempt some form of positive discrimination when interviewing applicants but, of course, it still means they would need to find the £8k fees plus accommodation.

So I'm bereft of new ideas to correct City's social class balance. But, at a wider level, I do believe publishers must be pressed - by the government, if necessary - to assist in the funding of journalistic education.

The problem is that many publishers/papers also run their own small-scale training schemes in order to ensure a ready supply of junior journalists. One such example is Journalist Works, the NCTJ-approved fast track scheme run by the Brighton Argus.

This does attract working class students, as I discovered when giving a talk to the latest cohort in May. Many commenters who dislike the concept of graduate courses would find virtue is its mix of theory and practice.

However, will they find jobs afterwards? They will get work on the Argus, of course, but will there be a prejudice against them in future by editors elsewhere?

MobiusB thinks that is possible, raising the thorny topic of nepotism. "Even if you have good qualifications, most of the best jobs in journalism are never advertised, and editors regularly ask their staff to recomment recruits."

At national level, there is an even more clear-cut nepotism. Count up just how many children of journalists end up on newspapers too. But I'd guess this is true of every profession.

Then there is work experience exploitation, as raised by my colleague, Vicky Frost, in an excellent posting. It may be a good way to test an applicant's suitability for a job, but too often it is simply a way to obtain cheap, even free, labour.

Then again, it is popular with students because they get their feet under the desk. It is surely significant that City University BA student audreyhorne writes of having learned more "through extra curricular work" than in her studies. But she only obtained the work because she was able to show that she was studying for a degree. Catch 22 indeed.

I'll conclude with a short extract from her remarks, because they sum up the difficulties faced by working class students, and she makes an apposite point about The Guardian too:

"When papers won't even consider undergrad students for measly two-week, unpaid work experience slots then a degree becomes necessity.

"I am looking directly at YOU Guardian and your strict post-graduate policy only - with the discretionary exception of nepotism...

"I am not hopeful for change. I've learned sheer belligerence is the only way forward."

Now that, of course, is the kind of spirit that editors love. And it remains the major reason why some people get on regardless of their qualifications, or lack of them.

That claim in the Unleashing Aspirationsreport about journalism being "one of the most exclusive middle-class professions of the 21st century" has prompted a social enterprise group, Catch 22, to offer what it calls "a unique solution."